Given the degree to which Renew the Arts supports art and artists, it might surprise you to hear Justus and Michael talking about how some aspiring artists should be discouraged from pursuing their dreams. In this episode, they pitch some practical ideas on how you can determine if God has really called you to the arts, and what that might look like. Wait until the end to hear “Songs for Friends” from Physick’s Songs for Friends.
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This is really a big topic. There are a lot of things to sort through. This is a good overview, however, so props there.
I am of the opinion that everyone is by nature, as being created by a Creator, an artist. At least in the broader sense of being creative. I like how Francis Schaeffer would say that our life is ultimately our greatest work of art. This communicates two ideas, imo. First is, as I mentioned, that we are all artists. Second, I think it puts our more specific artistic endeavors—painting, music, dance, etc.—into perspective of our overall being. I used to tell young theatre majors when I was a faculty adjunct, that art is about life. How can you have art if you don’t have a life? So go out and have a life. That will feed and inform your art.
When it comes to practicalities, the question of being called to be an artist is a bit too abstract, a bit too 50,000 feet. It’s like asking if one is called to politics, science, or ministry, or engineering. There are lots of ways to fulfill that calling, but not all will be the more obvious ways or even involve making a living.
One thing that I think gets kind of lost in these discussions of art is how being an artist and making a living making art is not always the same. I am of the school of thought that believes everyone should be making something—writing poetry, singing new songs, dancing with abandon. But that doesn’t mean, just because one makes art, that one will automatically make a living with their art. Making a living making art means that one i making something that someone, somewhere, is willing to give you money for doing that. It is a commercial endeavor. And sometimes what you want to make will be what people will be willing to pay. Sometimes it will be something else they pay you for that allows you to make what you want to make. As Denzel Washington told his daughters, you do what you have to do, so you can do what you want to do. In his mind he makes the more commercial films so he can afford to make films like Fences.
Or the way most artists think of it when wanting to make money with our art—how do you make something financially without selling your soul? And you don’t always succeed at that. Sometimes you have to work at Trader Joe’s between gigs.
So being called to be an doesn’t necessarily mean you will make a living with your art.
Being called to the arts, as you guys demonstrate with your endeavors, doesn’t mean you are called to making art. there are all sorts of opportunities in the arts that need artists but you won’t be making art yourself. Curators, producers, all the support industries, like technicians, recording engineers, editors, being on the board of directors or advisors for an artist or arts organization, a mentor… There are all sorts of art related callings that need people who have an artist’s sensibilities, but that don’t require you actually making something.
Your delineation of writing vs playing vs performing music is a good example. Not all musicians are capable of doing all three.
I once heard about three forms of artists. I can only remember two, but there is a third that I think is more obvious today. The first is the artist who creates from essentially nothing. The person who writes the song, writes the novel, creates the dance. they effectively start with a blank page and create.
Second are interpretive artists. Dancers who perform the choreography. Musicians who play and perform the music someone else wrote. I would also put curators and editors in this category.
While I can’t remember the third, my observation shows that these days another type of creator/artist is the iterative artist. The ones who add to work, like a mashup up or using samples of previous music as the basis for their own creation. Or they build on another work like a local artist who put images of Paris Hilton into classic art works. not quite the same as “found art”, but I am thinking of the guy who took online images and blew them up into larger images to show in a gallery.
And lastly, but not exhaustively, being an artist does not mean you will make things for anyone else but yourself and God, or a cadre of others.
All this is just the tip of the iceberg of thinking through if you are called to be an artist. Sometimes you are called to make Art. And sometimes you are called to make art.
Good podcast. Lots to think about and ponder.
Joe